Orson Welles reprised his role of Harry Lime from the celebrated 1949 film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel The Third Man. The radio series is a "prequel" to the film, and depicts the many misadventures of con-artist Lime in a somewhat lighter tone than the character's villainy in the film.


This audio is part of the collection: Old Time Radio
It also belongs to collection: Radio Programs

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Notes

These files have been updated with a higher quality set. August 2011

Provided by Times Past

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Reviewer: Eddystone - - August 25, 2011
Subject: Harry Lime -- great but a little sour
This is a great series! Thank you. But the sound quality/distortion, as noted by others, is a real drawback. It might also need volume balancing between the orchestral [vs. zither] intro/segue music and Welles' low-level intros.
I found a few of these episodes, three at 64kbs and some 32 & 24, on a different IA page, "Harry Lime with Orson Welles." At least the 64kbs ones seem much better.

Reviewer: Furrows - - August 19, 2011
Subject: Among Welles' best
Harry Lime is definitely among Welles best radio work. These are fun tales of a likeable rogue and Welles, ever the entertainer, makes them incredibly enjoyable. Welles not only had one of the great voices, he knew how to use it and exploits it to the max in the tone of these adventures. Good literate fun.

Reviewer: awakish - - July 5, 2009
Subject: That was the shot that killed Harry Lime
This remains not only one of my favorite otr series but also a favorite appearance by Mr. Wells in any capacity. As noted, a few episodes in this set do have a slightly "warbly" sound but they are still very much listenable, the slight warble barely distracts from the superb voice acting and great story lines. A great series.

Reviewer: Bangkok Ajarn - - June 24, 2009
Subject: The third lime
Fun stuff, the sound quality is poor in SOME episodes, but overall great shows that were cleverly written and Orson Welles was a fantastic radio actor. Good fun, enjoy!

Reviewer: samantha12 - - June 16, 2009
Subject: Suck on a Lime !
A great listen!

Welles roguishly twinkles throughout.

Poor sound, though the stories are so entertaining you forget about this one negative.

Reviewer: okiecarl - - May 12, 2009
Subject: Harry Lime
Wow! I've been listening to OTR for many years but for some reason never stumbled across Harry Lime before. Quick moving, highly original, clever little twists. Just plain fun to listen to. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys letting their imagination run!!

Great job and Thank You!!!

Reviewer: middleearthlotr - - April 28, 2009
Subject: I Also enjoy the free versions too
I would like to comment on the guy that gave it 2 stars, there is NOTHING in life that is free yet here is this website that offers a massive database of free OTR. I personally enjoy the fact that they are free and think it is important that it is, otherwise the shows would dissapear to all but the wealth (those who can aford to pay for these shows. Before i stumbled on this site I was fully prepared to pay the $30-$60 per season. Instead I looked around for a little bit and in five minutes I found this site and have recently purchased a 1TB hard drive and am creating a massive archive of all the OTR on the site so far I have about 210 shows but each show has 3-4 seasons in it so I have 1000+ seasons of just about every type of Radio show you could want. I love the fact that I got it for free. It amazes me that all this stuff is free because most of them arent in the store. it further amazes me that someone would write a 2 star review for something that is of no expense to them their completely and totally free! I give everything on this site 5 stars for that fact.

Reviewer: XMinusOne - - April 15, 2008
Subject: Considering that the episodes are more than half a century old
Whether the quality is as good as anyone would want, poor quality is better than no episodes. However, anyone is more than welcome to go to any of the pay-for-OTR websites and purchase "cleaner versions. Otherwise, it might be nice to thank those that posted OTR programs than to complain that the "free" versions aren't as high quality as the "paid" versions.

Reviewer: thda - - April 12, 2008
Subject: poor sound quality
I think the sound quality here is very disappointing. It sounds as if someone has tried to clear up the hiss with a "Gaussian filter" and rather overdone it; the result is a blurred, "wavy", very unpleasant sound. Note: this is not a review of the content of the show which I'm sure is great (Welles usually is); I simply gave up listening to it because of the poor sound.

Reviewer: Ed 999 - - October 24, 2007
Subject: The Lives of Harry Lime
The Third Man (The Lives of Harry Lime) was a old-time radio adventure series that ran in 1951 and 1952. It was based on the 1949 film of the same name.

Orson Welles stars as Harry Lime, a perpetually broke confidence man, smuggler, and general scoundrel. He will participate in virtually any criminal activity to make a fast buck, but uses his wits rather than a gun. He draws the line short of murder, blackmail, or drugs.

Even so, Harry is an endearing character and listeners love to hear of his one-step-ahead-of-the-law misadventures as he hops around the globe looking for his next pigeon.

The zither music of Anton Karas adds a wonderful Viennese ambience.

Each episode would begin with "The Third Man Theme" being played, abruptly cut off by an echoing gunshot. Then Welles would speak: "That was the shot that killed Harry Lime. He died in a sewer beneath Vienna, as those of you know who saw the movie 'The Third Man'. Yes, that was the end of Harry Lime... but it was not the beginning. Harry Lime had many lives... and I can recount all of them. How do I know? Very simple. Because my name is Harry Lime."

Although often cited as a BBC production, the series was one of a number produced and distributed independently by the prolific Harry Alan Towers. Only ten of the episodes were acquired and broadcast by the BBC in the UK. It was the first time that the BBC broadcast episodes of a dramatic series that it did not produce. The full series was syndicated to radio stations in the U.S.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Harry_Lime

Reviewer: SkipLVC - - August 20, 2007
Subject: Great Stuff
The only problem is that we are limited to 1 year of shows. Creative and quick moving plots.

Reviewer: Troubadour - - July 6, 2007
Subject: Just one download
try "Whole Directory" under "Downloads" for the zip

Reviewer: flyguy - - April 17, 2007
Subject: a thousand downloads?
but no reviews? top notch show - Welles at his peak again. Sheer genius